Don't make me frog it. You won't like me when I frog it.

Blankets, socks, and me vs my stash

Spring still seems to be a long way off, what with flooding, gale force winds, hail, and talk of snow later in the week. Nevertheless the urge to spring clean our flat has hit early, which is odd because some years it’s never hit at all! First order of business was organising my ever expanding yarn stash. I tend towards hoarding lots of small amounts of interesting looking yarn (as opposed to amounts sufficient to make larger items like jumpers or cardigans), which make it difficult to keep the collection tidy; so to solve this problem I’ve started storing similar yarns together in zip-lock bags. It’s not a perfect system, but at least it stops everything unwinding and getting tangled into one giant rat’s nest!

It was nice to look through it all again, and think about what I’d planned to do with it all (short answer: cushions, hot water bottle covers, tea cosies and amigurumi – some of which might still happen!), and it was exciting to see all the cotton yarn I’d squirrelled away in various places all in one place. I have two enormous laundry bags stuffed full of different types of yarn that will (hopefully!) fit under the bed, but I haven’t even started to go through all my acrylic DK yet, or any of my fabric stash! It’s probably a good thing that I started the spring cleaning early because I’ll be lucky to finish before the summer.

The miserable weather has spurred me on with my snuggly WIPs. My stripy blanket is making good progress (pattern by notyouraveragecrochet.com available for free here). My Catherine Wheel stripe and bobble stripe came out much better this time, so much better that I almost wish I could go back and redo the earlier ones that don’t look anything like as neat! I say almost because if I actually unravelled all the work I’ve already done… I can’t even finish that sentence! The idea of undoing all that work is just too horrific!

I’m at about row 58 now!

And in knitting news… I’ve finished a sock!

The tension is much improved with the 3.5mm dpns instead of 4mm, but I should have swapped down to an even smaller size for the ribbing. Hmm, I may have to go back and redo the cuff. I used Jeny’s surprisingly stretchy bind off to cast off, and as promised it was surprisingly stretchy! I think this will be my go-to method for casting off toe-up socks from now on.

The project I’ve made the most progress on is easily my ripple baby blanket (pattern by Celeste Young available free on Ravelry here). I can’t believe how quickly this hooks up! It is done in aran weight yarn though, which makes it super snuggly and warm as well as fast to work up.

As you can see, it’s big enough to snuggle up under now, which means it is very easy to dose off with it on my lap!

Right, time to have a look at that DK stash that’s still lurking menacingly in the corner. I’d better beat it back before it gets any ideas about swelling up to fill the space I’ve just cleared under the coffee table.

I’ve been doing some craft spring cleaning myself. Been getting a few surprises when I find materials I thought I had run out of.
I love the stripy blanket. It’s just what’s needed in this cold and wet weather.

It’s a really great pattern! notyouraveragecrochet.com deserves all the credit for it, especially for making the pattern available for free along with a great picture tutorial. I try to post pictures of my progress every week or two because it motivates me to keep working on it little and often between other projects. Love your squirrels BTW!